A cold wet weekend forecast. What to do? Obviously perfect conditions for a walk and scramble, so Simon, Carmen, Rob and me headed for Winnats Pass in the Peak, for a scramble followed by a walk up Mam Tor and back via Cavedale and Peveril Castle.
Heading off at a civilised 8.30 in pouring rain, our doubts about our sanity eased as we got closer to the Peak and the downpour stopped, to be replaced by the sight of snow on the ground. Parked up above Winnats, walked back down and eyed up Elbow Ridge, which was disconcertingy wet and snowy. Eventually Rob decided to take the lead and started up, so one up all up it was. Elbow Ridge is an exposed limestone fin, it's an exhilarating but easy diff in good conditions, however when the holds are wet and slippery, your hands are numb from wet snow and you look down at the road way below it feels altogether more exciting. Once we topped out hot aches set in, there was a vicious cold wind and the mist was blowing sideways in sheets as we were now inside the cloud.
Arriving at a unanimous decision that none of us fancied the scramble up Matterhorn Ridge in these conditions we moved hastily on to the walking part of the day. As we headed up Mam Tor the wet white stuff turned to proper creaky snow. Me and Carmen cunningly got to the top first and ambushed Rob and Simon with snowballs, but were beaten off by Rob's cheating tactics of catching all our snowballs and throwing them back at us. Most of the day the visibility was pretty poor but it stayed dry and every so often we got clear views and pretty golden light filtering through the mist.
Heading back through Cavedale and past Peveril Castle we found a heated and barred off cave containing machinery. Rob Simon and Carmen agreed this must have been something to do with the nearby show caves, however I prefer to believe it was Dr No's secret underground headquarters. We completed the walk just as the light began to fade, and felt that all things considered we had made good use of the day.